Chris A. Baird | January 14, 2022
How Much It Costs To Self Publish A Photo Book

Creating a photo book can be as easy as you could possibly imagine but do you know how much it costs to self publish a photo book? Check out this article for you to find out.

Today's topic has three points and you're going to want to stick around. Because the third point is a secret as to the absolute most important thing to consider when it comes to the costs to self publish a photo book.

So the topic we're discussing today is how much it costs to self-publish a photo book? You're going to know the different costs associated with getting your photo book on the market.

How My Experiments Begin

You're going to know the difference between the different costs and exactly the steps that are best for you. And you're going to feel great knowing that you've decided to go in the route that is best for you.

Grab a copy of my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist to make sure that you are not skipping any of the steps necessary to win when it comes to self-publishing. I include quite a few secrets on my checklist. So from my own story, my kids were always doing lots of drawings, making stories, and things like that.

And it suddenly hit me as a self-publisher. At the time I had 30 books on the market now it's over 200 that maybe I could take some of their drawings and put them together into a storybook. And that was the beginning of my experiments with picture books.

But the thing is I hadn't really tried before combining them. But I thought it would be worth the effort and the excitement knowing how easy it could be done. So the first thing I did was I scanned all of the photos that they had created and they had drawn.

I do them in such a way that it made a picture story then we added the text below. So we figured out what is happening in each of the picture frames that was going on. And the final thing was I wasn't sure if the tool that I had been using and that I recommend myself is Jutoh.

Which you can check out my affiliate link in the description of all of my YouTube videos. This tool is an amazing tool but I had not used it for dealing with picture books. So this was my very first time and what did I discover was that this tool works amazingly well.

You have complete control over every aspect of your photo. There is no issue that you can't simply fix. You can decide the dimensions of your book and you can get everything properly aligned so that it is flawlessly working for you.

When your pages, the layout, the design, the text, and exactly everything you could possibly want. It's super simple to get within your book and that was exactly what I did with my children's books. The thing was is I then was able to because I'm using Jutoh which is so easy to use.

I was able to click a single button to produce the ebook version that I put on Amazon Kindle KDP select and then I hit the additional time. I was able to then get the formatting correct when it came to the print version. And some of these steps when you're first starting can be so confusing.

And that deals with any tool you're going to learn. This is the easiest tool to learn that gets the formatting perfect the first time but you can go with cheaper options. But for me, this was the tool that I really enjoy using I enjoy it so much that I taught my own employees how to go about doing it.

I showed my children how this tool works as well. And the thing is is that you're able to just pull the files that you have in word or whatever tool that you're using to write directly into this tool. Where you can hit the single button and then it pulls it on through.

I even created a course to show my employees how to do it. I sell that Course even today below in the description of all of my YouTube videos to show you how to do the formatting yourself. Whether you're doing picture books or whether you're doing just text-based books.

These are the tools you're definitely going to want to invest in. The kids were incredibly impressed because the end result looked like a book you could buy off of a bookshelf. You would see at the library or at a bookstore the quality was exactly the same.

Have The Right Tools

It was unbelievable they were completely impressed. I've also done this with hardback books as well if you're going through Lulu or even amazon is now doing hardback books as well. But it depends upon the length of the book.

The books I was dealing with the kids would be about 24 to 30 pages in length. That ensures it's long enough to make a paperback copy of the book. Now hardback books have to be a bit longer but at least for the paperback version of this book.

It worked absolutely flawlessly for these books. I ran ads against them and was seeing other people buying them and giving organic reviews and sales on these very books that these kids did. You can imagine the looks in their eyes.

Seeing the sales that were coming through the books that they had invested their time and their creativity. I did not use their actual names because I want to make sure that in the future they can decide for themselves how much they want to be out there.

Check out this related article: Can You Make Money Self-Publishing

But they're on the market even now where people are continually checking them out buying these books it's amazing. The idea that the work that you do once the kids can do once can be used again is one of my introductions.

And where I came in on the photo books other than my clients who also do photo books from time to time. So how much does it cost to self-publish a photo book? Well, the first thing is if you have the right tools and I would suggest at least at a minimum buying Jutoh.

The tool is just such a powerful tool when it comes to getting your books perfect the first time. But other than that you can do it for free and once you own the tool for I don't remember $30 to $50 somewhere in there.

You own that tool that from this point on, you no longer have to pay again. It's not like an annual fee or anything like that and it's also a lot better than paying other people to do the book for you. Unless you absolutely want to do that but that's the first cost.

So it'd be about $40 to $50 dollars just to get the tool. The next thing is if you need to hire a graphic designer on Fiverr it's going to cost you $500 to a thousand dollars. Now assuming you don't already have your own photos or design or illustrations for the book that you're doing.

Now I saw package deals I think it was one thousand storybooks.com or something where one of my coaching clients was even trying them out. Which is they will for a thousand dollars be able to take your ideas and your stories.

And they'll find an illustrator and they will illustrate up to 14 illustrations. Then they'll have your text below it and they can do the entire book from there so that's an option. Now as I tell my coaching clients I would not recommend this option.

I mean I give it as an option because if you want to get a book out fast this is the way to go. But in the long run, you're going to want to make changes. And that brings us into our secret answer of the day regarding this cost issue.

And the answer is it is worth investing the time and learning the formatting yourself since it will save you thousands of dollars later. Because that's how much some of these books can cost if you don't go through the one I mentioned before.

I'm not an affiliate of theirs but I have heard that they are very reliable. And I'm always eager to hear what people have to say about different options when it comes to your books. But it's going to cost you thousands of dollars.

Invest In Yourself

As I've been told, each change that was made in another company that did the same sort of a thing cost $200. It can take forever to get back your illustrations and the text for the book if you want to then do it yourself.

That's one of the reasons I created the Book Formatting Made Easy Course which you can find below in the description of all of my YouTube videos. In order to make this whole process simple. So instead of investing a thousand dollars plus each change with that 200.

Why not simply invest $50, pick up the course. We go through it and somebody asked me recently if it was just a video course? The answer is yes it is just a video course but at the same time, I go back and forth with my students on there.

So my thing is that I'm guaranteeing you're going to get the results. You're going to get your book out, If not, you get your money back. So I always make sure that there's a risk reversal on everything.

So there's a guarantee I stand behind everything, the steps work perfectly. Sometimes I get feedback from students "oh I didn't quite understand what you meant with this or that". I re-record videos in order to ensure 100% you're going to be able to do this.

So, how much it costs to self publish a photo book? Even if you feel that you're technically not very gifted in this. And so if you take the course and you take buying Jutoh and you combine these together in order to do this.

Well, you'd be looking at $500 or somewhere in that range. So that you're able then to better go about doing it yourself from this point on. Instead of spending thousands of dollars, you're able just to do it yourself.

And that means you can control exactly the look and feel. I can't tell you how many people I've known and clients who specifically had hired somebody else to do it. Then, it was wrong this way, it was wrong that way.

The same goes with audiobooks where you're going with a lower quality narrator and it just ends up with terrible results. Where even audible and ACX won't even accept the results.

So I'm telling you when it comes to your photo book or your picture book that you're putting together it's worth investing yourself. If you don't have the ability to do that then I would hire someone on Upwork or on Fiverr.

Who has the number of thousands of thousands of reviews that are like five-star and hire somebody to go about doing it? That way if you simply don't have the time and that also is going to then cost you. This is why the price starts to go up but you know you get the illustrations to the cover of a thousand.

And if you invest in yourself then maybe $500 to $1500 and at that point, you're in a position where you can do the next books yourself. Or if you have the illustrations yourself or know an artist who can do the illustrations.

If you're not going to have to pay for those, well then you can really do the whole thing for $500 to $600 which I would highly recommend. Now you can go on the cheap and do it completely for free.

Just taking the Word documents and putting them up. The formatting is going to be off. It means you're going to get poor reviews against your books. It's going to simply waste your time.

The people who read your book are really not going to like it if the formatting is off. So why not just get it done right the first time? That's something I think you're definitely going to want to consider.

Conclusion

So, that's how much it costs to self publish a photo book. But I hope that helped with the cost a bit. But have you self-published a photo book? 

If you have, write "yes" below in the comments. Because I need to know where you're coming from and check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.

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